Higher step counts could lower risk of early death, study finds | Society. It may be worth dusting off the fitness tracker when you head out on your government-approved stroll: researchers have found higher step counts are associated with a lower risk of early death. While the figure of 10,000 steps a day is a popular goal, researchers have long criticised the fact it has its roots in a Japanese marketing campaign, rather than scientific research. Now researchers say step monitoring in more than 4,800 adults aged 40 or over has shown that higher step counts are associated with a lower chance of death from any cause over a 10-year period.
What is more, it seems individuals do not need to hit 10,000 steps a day to start seeing a benefit. Dr Charles Matthews of the US National Cancer Institute, a co-author of the study, said the findings chimed with NHS advice that any type of activity is good and that doing more is better. Of the 4,840 participants with sufficient data, individuals took an average of 9,124 steps per day. Running a mile a day can make children healthier – here’s how schools can make it more fun. Children today spend more time sitting than ever before. And research shows that as they grow up, children tend to become more sedentary and less active. This is where The Daily Mile, a teacher-led running programme for primary school children, aims to make a difference. Designed by a headteacher in Scotland in 2012 in a bid to get children more active, the concept involves children running laps of the playground or school playing fields for 15 minutes everyday. Its simple design combined with political, public health and celebrity endorsement has seen it expand to over 10,000 schools in 78 countries worldwide.
Recent research has shown that The Daily Mile may help children become fitter and reduce their body fat. But with over 2.3 million children taking part over the last eight years, we wanted to find out what school children thought of The Daily Mile. What the kids say On the whole, pupils enjoyed taking part in The Daily Mile but some also spoke of it becoming repetitive and boring.
Sit Less, Get Active - The University of Edinburgh. About this course: Physical inactivity and sedentariness are “silent killers”. Do you feel like you spend too much time sitting? Do you feel like you would like to be more active? Are you unsure about how to incorporate physical activity into your daily life? We are here to help. Join us on a journey to learn about how to sit less and become more active. Bike Lanes May Be The Most Cost-Effective Way To Improve Public Health. Amazing things happen to a city once people are encouraged to switch to bike commuting: the air quality improves throughout the city, which benefits everyone, not just cyclists. Quieter roads are more pleasant roads to be around, and they’re less congested for those who still insist on driving. And of course riding a bike every day brings all kinds of health benefits to the cyclists themselves. A new study from researchers at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health shows just how big those benefits can be.
Per dollar spent, constructing bike lanes is a cheap way to improve public health. For instance back in 2005, New York City spent $10 million on curbing traffic as part of the federally-funded Safe Routes to School program. Sidewalks were widened, bike lanes constructed, and traffic lights re-phased to suit pedestrians. The “net societal benefit” of these changes?
The study also points out some interesting facts. Theconversation. Warmer weather and longer days can herald feelings of renewed energy and a sense of new beginnings. This year the seasonal change in Britain was pre-empted by a series of official nudges encouraging people to put extra spring into their steps. Move more, sit less and ensure you spend time every day being physically active, goes the advice. Momentum began to build in late February as women and girls were called to action by the return of Sport England’s This Girl Can campaign. April was the month for World Physical Activity Day, while May featured #MoveWeek. These initiatives certainly help raise awareness of the role that regular physical activity plays in preventing illness and promoting good health. But the simplicity of exhorting people to “be more active” belies how complicated it can be to put this into practice.
Can individuals alone make the changes that are required? Consider, for example, the challenge of raising physical activity levels among older people. Taking a step back. Let's make this happen! "Increasing physical activity is simple, widely applicable, low cost global strategy that could ⏬⏬deaths & CVD" UK health body calls for Copenhagen-style bike-friendly streets | Society. The streets of Britain could start to look like those of Copenhagen, where cycling is prioritised over cars, if local authorities act on new official health guidance. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) is recommending that cars come last when new roads are built or old ones upgraded. Not just cyclists but also pedestrians and those who use public transport should be prioritised, it says. Nice’s remit is health. The proposal is part of a draft quality standard for encouraging physical activity for everybody. Lack of exercise, sitting at home and travelling everywhere by car is contributing to the nation’s obesity epidemic.
In 2016, more than a quarter – 26% – of the adult population were deemed to be obese, which carries risks for heart disease, cancer and type 2 diabetes. Physical inactivity is responsible for one in six UK deaths, which is as many as caused by smoking. “People can feel less safe when they walk or cycle compared with when they drive. Article: Physical Activity and the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease: From Evolution to Epidemiology. Blogs: BJSM blog – social media's leading SEM voice » Blog Archive World Health Organisation to develop Global Action Plan to Promote Physical Activity - BJSM blog - social media's leading SEM voice. By Charlie Foster, Trevor Shilton, Lucy Westerman, Justin Varney, and Fiona Bull More people moving more is central to a healthier world.
Unfortunately, evidence tells us that people everywhere are less active than ever before, and the burden of chronic noncommunicable diseases rises unabated. In response, the WHO has launched their strategy to develop a new Global Action Plan to Promote Physical Activity. Years of advocacy have culminated in this unique opportunity; the development and comprehensive implementation of a global action plan to promote physical activity. This in many ways, will shape the future. Why is WHO suddenly talking about physical activity? WHO has encouraged member state governments to promote physical activity for over a decade. What’s helped get physical activity on the global agenda?
Recent progress toward a Global Action Plan to Promote Physical Activity comes thanks to the tireless work of various key individuals and organisations. Competing Interests. Moving around has big health benefits – and now we know how big. Pretty much everyone knows that taking exercise helps people stay in good health. It staves off chronic ailments like type 2 diabetes and heart disease and – maybe – helps us live longer. Until recently, however, the prevailing view among both policy people and researchers was that you only got benefits from moderate to vigorous exercise – the kind that gets you at least slightly out of breath, such as brisk walking, doing sport or going to the gym.
Health authorities and the media focused their public health messages accordingly. But while many people are still not doing as much strenuous exercise as they should, another creeping trend has been taking place. There has been a dramatic drop in how much we move around our houses and workplaces. While we have very good evidence about how vigorous exercise affects our health, little is known about this disappearing background of daily light activity. What we found It is worth noting some limitations to our study. What now. Why exercise alone won’t save us | News. This is the time of year when trainers are mined from under beds and gym kits are disinterred from the bottom drawer.
Google searches relating to physical fitness peak in January. Many people even trawl the web to find out about “desk exercises” and “workouts on the go” in case they are too busy to use their new gym memberships. Our relationship with exercise is complicated. Reports from the UK and the US show it is something we persistently struggle with. As the new year rolls around, we anticipate having the drive to behave differently and become regular exercisers, even in the knowledge that we will probably fail to do so. Why do we want to exercise? What do we expect it to do for us? Exercise is movement of the muscles and limbs for a specific outcome, usually to enhance physical fitness.
Fitness crazes are like diets: if any of them worked, there wouldn’t be so many. The exercise craze that dominated the 1950s was, oddly, not even an exercise. I tried other things, too. Even a few minutes' exercise is good for you, new guidelines state | Society. Exercise is good for you even if you clock up just a few minutes at a time, new UK guidelines state, overturning previous recommendations that physical activity needed to last at least 10 minutes to bring benefits. The updated guidelines on physical activity, released by the UK chief medical officers, mean that even a quick sprint up the stairs can contribute to the 150 minutes of moderate to brisk exercise (or 75 mins of intense activity) that adults are recommend to undertake every week.
“We are emphasising the benefits of all activity at all levels, ideally working towards this threshold,” said Dr Charlie Foster, from the University of Bristol, chair of the CMO’s expert committee for physical activity. The report reiterates that adults should minimise time spent sedentary, as well as undertaking activities to develop or maintain muscle strength twice a week – such as gardening, carrying heavy shopping bags or doing aerobics.
Cars are killing us. Within 10 years, we must phase them out | George Monbiot. It’s the last straw. Parked outside the hospital doors is a minibus with its engine running. The driver is playing on his mobile phone. The fumes are blowing into the atrium. I step up to his window and ask him to turn the engine off. He does so, grumpily. Then I notice he’s wearing a health service uniform. Let’s abandon this disastrous experiment, recognise that this 19th-century technology is now doing more harm than good, and plan our way out of it. Yes, the car is still useful – for a few people it’s essential. In other sectors, greenhouse gas emissions have fallen sharply. The number of people killed on the roads was falling steadily in the UK until 2010, at which point the decline suddenly ended. There are also subtler and more pervasive effects.
New roads carve up the countryside, dispelling peace, creating a penumbra of noise, pollution and ugliness. A switch to electric cars addresses only some of these issues. We are told that cars are about freedom of choice. More active people for a healthier world, the global action plan 2018 - 2030. Regular physical activity is proven to help prevent and treat noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes and breast and colon cancer. It also helps prevent hypertension, overweight and obesity and can improve mental health, quality of life and well-being.
Yet, much of the world is becoming less active. WHO has developed a new global action plan to help countries scale up policy actions to promote physical activity. It responds to the requests by countries for updated guidance, and a framework of effective and feasible policy actions to increase physical activity at all levels. The plan sets out four objectives and recommends 20 policy actions that are applicable to all countries and address the cultural, environmental and individual determinants of inactivity.
Working in partnerships, WHO will support countries to implement a whole-of-community approach to increase levels of physical activity in people of all ages and abilities. Theconversation. Sitting has been branded the “new smoking” for its supposed public health risks, especially for people with sit-down office jobs. Over the past 15 years or so sitting has been linked with cancer, heart disease and diabetes and even depression. This has led to a surge in media stories on the risks of sitting, even for people who do a lot of exercise. Then there’s the rise in the popularity of standing desks to encourage people to get off their chairs to improve their health.
But is sitting really that risky? And do we really need standing desks? What does the evidence say? In our latest study we investigated if not only the total amount of sitting, but different types of sitting, were linked with developing type 2 diabetes. We wanted to see if there was any difference between sitting watching TV, sitting at work, or sitting at home but not watching TV. We found only a weak association with the time spent sitting watching TV and an increased risk of developing diabetes.
How about standing desks? Welcome Motivate 2 Move Fantastic resource for NHS health professionals on exercise & physical activity by disease. Exercise is good for you – unless it's part of your job | Science. Men who work as labourers or in other physically demanding roles have a greater risk of dying early than those with more sedentary jobs, researchers say. The finding, from scientists in the Netherlands, reveals an apparent “physical activity paradox” where exercise can be harmful at work but beneficial to health when performed in leisure time.
Pieter Coenen, a public health researcher at VU University medical centre in Amsterdam, said the reason for the disparity is unclear, but he believes it may reflect the different types of exercise people get at work compared with those in their free time. “While we know leisure-time physical activity is good for you, we found that occupational physical activity has an 18% increased risk of early mortality for men,” Coenen said.
“These men are dying earlier than those who are not physically active in their occupation.” But Coenen believes other factors are at play. . … we have a small favour to ask. People not getting enough exercise from long walks – report | Life and style. Walking is just not enough, according to a new review of the evidence from Public Health England, which reveals a major disconnect between the exercise people need and what they actually do. Those who thought 10,000 steps a day or a brisk daily trudge from a further bus stop meant they were doing enough to stay fit and healthy have got it wrong. People should also all be doing tai chi, weight lifting or ballroom dancing – although carrying home heavy shopping bags might do the trick.
Aerobic exercise, such as walking or gardening, is good for the heart and improves the circulation. PHE’s review said that muscle and bone strengthening and balance activities are also vital for health and future wellbeing, but they are neglected. In older adults poor muscle strength increased the risk of a fall by 76%, PHE said. In 2011, the UK’s four chief medical officers issued guidance containing three pieces of exercise and activity advice, but only some of it has been well followed. Tipping point: revealing the cities where exercise does more harm than good | Cities.